IPSWICH — An early morning fire at Ipswich's main electrical substation yesterday left the town's 13,500 residents without power for five hours, and provided an unexpected day off for 900 elementary school students.
There was no explosion and there were no injuries. The cause of the fire was unknown yesterday.
The lights went out just before 7 a.m., as parents were preparing to send their kids to school. It was too late to cancel classes in the usual manner, so elementary school bus drivers were sent out on their normal runs and told to inform parents at each stop there would be no school
Middle- and high-school students were already aboard their buses, so the decision was made to allow them into their buildings. However, cafeteria workers were not prepared to supply a cold lunch for everyone, so classes were dismissed at 11 a.m.
"It gave parents the time to decide what to do," Middle School Principal Cheryl Forster said.
At an emergency meeting at Town Hall at noon yesterday, Utilities Director Tim Henry said the fire destroyed one of two high-voltage circuit breakers at the substation. Power was rerouted through the other circuit breaker, and service was restored throughout town by 12:20 yesterday afternoon.
The only problem with the fix is that it means there is now no backup line should a similar problem occur. While it would normally take several months to get a new circuit breaker, Henry said one might be available from a neighboring town.
"This time of year, we're not that concerned about load demands," Henry said.
Market Street in downtown Ipswich was uncharacteristically quiet yesterday morning. Most business owners had posted signs in their front windows indicating they would be opening when power was back on. Normally hard to come by, parking spaces were available by the dozens.
Saving the ice cream
One of the few open doors was at Zumi's coffee and ice cream on Market Street. Owner Umesh Bhuju had placed insulated blankets over his ice cream tubs, and the glass doors on the freezers were padlocked closed to keep the products cold for as long as possible.
At the Caldwell Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, things were running pretty much as normal yesterday, with a generator providing electricity for essential services.
"There's some inconvenience, but it's something the staff can handle," Executive Director Phil Sher said.
The power outage came as the Electric Light Department is embarking on a project that will double the number of substations in town from two to four. Voters at last fall's Special Town Meeting agreed to spend $7.5 million to build two new substations at Vermette Court that will provide a backup means of power distribution in the event of failures such as yesterday's.
"The message here is that when we told people the equipment was old and was going to fail, it failed," Town Manager Bob Markel said.
The outage was a shakedown cruise for the town's emergency preparedness plans, and highlighted several problems.
While both the fire and police stations have backup generators, they are not large enough to meet all the needs of either department. There is no backup generator at Town Hall, where municipal offices remained open throughout the day.
"The fire station and the police station need to be fully powered," police Chief Gavin Keenan said at yesterday's meeting.
Late yesterday, Markel said Plant and Facilities Director Bill Hodge estimated it would cost about $100,000 to upgrade the two stations, install a generator at Town Hall and supply natural gas to the Linebrook Road fire substation generator.
Health issues
Health Agent Colleen Fermon said she also encountered a problem contacting a number of the more than 100 establishments in town licensed to sell food. They all needed to be made aware of safe food-handling practices during a power outage.
All were supposed to provide emergency contact numbers, Fermon said, yet she had gotten no answer at several of the numbers.
Fermon said it also took her a while time to find a department that had a refrigerator up and running to store the town's ration of state-supplied flu vaccine. She finally found one at the wastewater treatment plant, she said.
School Superintendent Rick Korb is expected to request the commissioner of education count yesterday as a school day, since students at the middle and high schools were in class more than half the day. Korb noted that teachers all reported to duty and will have to be paid.
"I'm hoping (the commissioner's office) will be sympathetic in these tough financial times," Korb said.
